Amnesty Extended, Bank of Canada staff Exempted?

The amnesty protecting owners of "newly prohibited firearms" has been extended from April 30, 2022 to October 30, 2023. 3 years, 5 months, and 29 days after Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Bill Blair announced the ban of some 1,500 varieties of rifles via unilateral Order-in-Council, Canadians in possession of both a "newly prohibited firearm" and a firearms license will be liable to federal charges.

The prohibition, created by "Order-In-Council" and thus not requiring any parliamentary oversight or votes, was passed on May 1st of 2020, in the wake of the Portapique massacre - but before it became known that the murderer used arson and a mixture of stolen and smuggled firearms in his rampage. Administration of the ban has since been contracted to the architect of the Phoenix Pay System, IBM, and passed to a new Minister of Public Safety: Marco Mendicino.

In a "gun violence" announcement this morning, Mendicino committed $250M in federal funding for local community supports but did not address the matter of the amnesty's extension until asked directly about it by a journalist representing the Toronto Star. Evasive in his response, the Minister then faced a relatively bluntly worded follow-up; "what's the hold-up?"

While his subsequent response once more provided no clarification on why the program has been delayed, it did provide some insight into what gun owners can expect, clarifying that while the amnesty was being extended by 18 months, the buyback program is not and can be expected to launch shortly.

Notably absent from the Markham-based announcement was any law enforcement participation. No RCMP, OPP, or local police were on hand to field questions, nor were any local community outreach groups or programs to discuss the deliverables of the $250M funding announcement. The event's start was delayed, the Minister's talking points poorly rehearsed, and little to no support was available in the room. The applause that met the quarter-billion-dollar announcement was awkwardly sparing.

Gazette Notice

The formal announcement of the amnesty's extension occurred in the Canada Gazette; the formal publication announcing parliamentary matters. Interestingly it sheds more light on the amnesty's extension, citing various reasons ranging from the lack of transport options available to newfound owners of prohibited rifles to rifles and firearms in transit when the OIC was created, but one that is certainly of interest to gun owners:

"The Bank of Canada could not use part of its inventory, which it possessed and used prior to the May 1, 2020 ban, to protect its assets, premises, and individuals because some firearms are now prohibited and its personnel are not currently legally permitted to use them."

The subtext here is that the Bank of Canada clearly has a civilian security force that uses AR-15s in the course of their duties, and that since the ban, they've been unable to avail themselves of these arms. The amendment announced in the gazette changes that, allowing civilian Bank of Canada employees to retain their rifles.

To put that another way, the Trudeau government has amended it's so-called "assault-style rifle ban" to allow civilian, public employees of the Bank of Canada (a public entity) to continue to possess rifles Prime Minister Justin Trudeau referred to as having been "designed to kill as many people as possible in the shortest amount of time."

This amendment, made at the Bank of Canada's request, tacitly accepts that these rifles have practical purposes in public hands. In fact, by amending this law to specifically include these rifles for the Bank's use, the government isn't just admitting they're tools that can be used to defend "assets, premises, and individuals," but rather that they are quite literally the best tools to use for that purpose - otherwise surely the government would insist the Bank of Canada use a superior, non-prohibited alternative.