Canadian Taxpayers Federation once again sets sights on expense of OIC confiscation

With the federal government's throne speech last week, the stage is set for the new Liberal government's plans, which include further enacting the firearms-banning Order in Council of May, 2020. And now, the Canadian Taxpayers Federation has gotten a copy of the report IBM put together to organize the firearms confiscation resulting from that OIC.

The Canadian Taxpayers Federation got their hands on IBM's report through an Access to Information and Privacy request (ATIP), and some of the useful details are blacked out. In fact, many of the costing details, perhaps the most important information for the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, has a lot of info redacted. You can see the paperwork here, complete with large gaps of missing info.

However, we can extrapolate some information from numbers in the report. It seems IBM assumes there are 134,000 firearms affected by the OIC, including both restricted and non-restricted firearms. If you look at the report's estimate of the cost of New Zealand's recent gun seizures , in which the government spent more than $100 million CAD to seize 34,000 firearms, we can guess IBM expects Canada's OIC will cost at least $394 million. That's all without seizing firearms from criminals, only from legal gun owners―which is why law enforcement has spoken out against the Order in Council, saying it will divert resources away from actual crimefighting.

The Canadian Taxpayers Federation says this: "The Parliamentary Budget Officer estimated reimbursing gun owners could cost up to $756 million. That number doesn’t include administration costs which could add billions of dollars to the final tab.

When the Liberal Party first announced the policy, it told voters the gun buyback would cost about $200 million. In 2021, Public Safety Minister Bill Blair then said the costs would land 'somewhere between $300 and $400 million dollars.' "

We might not know the actual long-term cost of the plan, or even IBM's estimate, but we do know the bill for the program is rising quickly. The Canadian Taxpayers Federation says the Department of Public Safety's latest report puts the cost of the Order in Council to $8.8 million so far.

To fight back, the Federation is now running a billboard campaign raising public awareness of the cost.

Other details

Firearms owners should scan at least a few paragraphs of the IBM report, because there's a lot of information in there. For instance: Did you know that not all seized firearms may be destroyed? IBM suggests the government may wish to keep the seized firearms (NPFs) for its own purposes. As per the IBM report: "It is feasible that some NPFs may be desired or needed for Military use, police training purposes or for preservation in museums. Therefore, destruction may not be the desired end result of all NPFs collected." See more here.

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