The long gun ban initiated by former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in May of 2020, originally estimated to cost $200 million by then-Minister of Public Safety Bill Blair, is now budgeted to cost Canadian taxpayers over $803.4 million.
This news comes after the release of the 2025-2026 Main Estimates from Canada’s Treasury Board earlier this month. Predicated on existing commitments, the Main Estimates are a compilation of expected departmental spending, and this year indicate that Public Safety Canada expects to transfer $342.6M in Grants and Contributions in support of the so-called “Assault-Style Firearms Compensation Program” (ASFCP) - the first tranche of a $597.9M three-year commitment made by former Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland in the last Fall Economic Statement.
However, this $342.6 million in Grants and Contributions is separate from and in addition to the operational expenses Public Safety Canada expects to incur to support and deliver the ASFCP, which are not broken down by program within the Main Estimates themselves, but are at least partially accounted for in the most recent quarterly financial statement published by Public Safety, where new funding is justified in more detail. According to the quarterly report, the ASFCP’s operating expenses were responsible for the largest increase in the department’s operating expenses year-over-year, incurring $53.1M in new funding as of December 31, 2024 - meaning at least that much would have been included in the 2025-2026 Main Estimates’ budgeted amount for Public Safety’s operating expenses vis a vis the ASFCP - and potentially more, depending on how much pre-existing funding the program already had allocated.
That means the most conservative amount Public Safety will spend confiscating rifles and shotguns from licensed Canadian gun owners, over the next fiscal year, will be an eye-watering $395.7 million. Moreover, it joins the $100.8 million budgeted towards the AFSCP and related programs last year ($30.4M by Budget 2024 and the remainder appropriated through Supplementary Estimates A & B) and $51.6 million spent from 2021 to 2023 (as indicated by a response to an Order Paper question tabled by CPC MP Larry Brock) to arrive at a budgeted total of at least $548.1 million from 2021 to the end of this fiscal year. Incorporate the promised-but-not-yet-budgeted remaining amount called for by 2024’s Fall Economic Statement, and the $25.8M spent or budgeted to support the ASFCP by the RCMP (reported both in the response to the Order Paper question and the Supplementary Estimates), and the figure begins to close in on the billion-dollar mark, at $803.4 million.
As stated, this is a very conservative estimate. According the aforementioned quarterly financial report from Public Safety, $30.8 million in new funding was earmarked explicitly for Public Safety's operation and administration of the business-only component of the program, which, according to government estimates, only targets 9,000 of the roughly 140,000 firearms prohibited in May of 2020 - meaning the amount in operating expenses budgeted by Public Safety, per potential firearm confiscated as part of the business portion of the program, was $3,422. Add in the $13.7M in new funding for Grants and Contributions required by the business-only component of the buyback (also reported in the quarterly report and likely to provide a portion of the compensation for businesses that reported their prohibited inventory before the Public Safety-imposed deadline for compensation in April), and you arrive at the even less believable figure of $4,944 per potential firearm confiscated. But somehow, it gets worse.
Because the business-only component of the confiscation program is, by far, the easiest portion of the ASFCP to deliver. The few hundred impacted business and their inventory are inspected by Firearms Officers annually, and they all interface with the Canadian Firearms Program on a daily basis. By contrast, seizing the estimated 131,000 privately owned firearms that the government estimates it prohibited in May of 2020 involves liaising with exponentially more parties to arrange everything from the logistics to compensation, making it an exponentially more difficult program to deliver. And that means it’s unlikely that even the eye-watering expense-to-firearm rate budgeted for by the business-only component of the AFSCP will prove sustainable when the program transitions to confiscating firearms from individuals. In other words, operating expenses of $448.3 million for Public Safety to administer the ASFCP might be the best-case scenario - a far cry from $51.3 million included in the above estimates. Add in the cost of compensation, based on last year's new funding for the business portion, and that sum rises to $647.6 million.
Additionally, while the government estimates there to be only 140,000 firearms prohibited in May of 2020, firearms industry import records actually show to be dramatically higher; at least 518,000. Using the figure supported by import records, the projected operating expenses rise to $1.8 billion, with the cost of compensation bringing the total north of $2.6 billion. Add in the additional required expenses incurred by the RCMP and other partner agencies to support the program, and the total cost quickly surpasses $3 billion. And one of these totals include the thousands of additional firearms banned in the second and third round of bans imposed in December of 2024, and March of this year - all of which are expected to be subject to a similar compensation program.
If this all sounds familiar, it should: In 1993 The Firearms Act was introduced by former PM Kim Campbell, calling for massive revisions to Canada’s gun control regime including the creation of the Canadian Firearms Centre, firearms possession licenses (replacing acquisition certificates), and an expanded gun registry that required all owners register their long guns in the same way handgun owners had for decades prior. The bill passed and became law on December 5, 1995, but due to the complexity of the reforms required, it took three more years for the fledgling Canadian Firearms Centre to begin issuing the new Possession and Acquisition Licenses and registering firearms in the equally new Canadian Firearms Registry. In the interim, owners were provided a protective amnesty to prevent previously law-abiding gun owners from being charged with possession of an unregistered firearm.
But a few years after the registry had been created, rumours of cost overruns during its development and operation began to swirl, and in December of 2002, nine years after the bill requiring its creation was passed, then-Auditor General Shiela Fraser issued a scathing report on the registry, estimating that by 2005 costs would eclipse $1 billion with revenues not exceeding $140M.
In 2006, a Director of the Canadian Shooting Sports Association also levelled allegations of improper lobbying at the program, citing a $380,000 contract awarded to a Liberal Party consultant to lobby the federal government for additional funding for the registry. The five-month contract was awarded by the Justice Department in March 2003 to lobby the federal Solicitor General, Treasury Board and Privy Council, according to a detailed lobbyist report, causing Bernado to ask, "[isn't it] inappropriate for the Federal Government to hire a private lobbyist with taxpayers' dollars to lobby itself?"
Eventually, the registry would become a political hot potato, with responsibility for the Firearms Centre that administered the registry moving from the Justice Department to the RCMP, all while ever-growing reports of ballooning budgets led to the long-gun registry earning the moniker of a “billion-dollar boondoggle.” Eventually even that nickname would prove insufficient as reports began to indicate that costs were encroaching on, and then exceeding $2 billion, eventually culminating in not one but two Harper-era Conservative efforts to scrap the registry - one thwarted by Jack Layton’s NDP supporting the long gun registry, the second carried to a successful resolution by former PM Stephen Harper’s final, and majority government. Over three years in the planning phase and 14 more in operation, the registry that was initially slated to cost $2 million was estimated to have consumed $2.7 billion in taxpayer funding, with an estimated compliance rate of less than 50%. It was so ill-regarded that then-Leader of the Liberal Party of Canada Justin Trudeau referred to it as a failure in 2012, before continuing, saying, "I was raised with an appreciation and an understanding of how important in rural areas and right across the country gun ownership is as a part of the culture of Canada. I do not feel that there's any huge contradiction between keeping our cities safe from gun violence and gangs, and allowing this important facet of Canadian identity, which is having a gun."
Ironically, it has been five years since that same man informed 2.3 million licensed firearm owners that hundreds of thousands of firearms in Canada were no longer legal for them to possess. Five different Ministers of Public Safety have grappled with the incredibly complex, and perhaps impossible, task of confiscating hundreds of thousands of devices they themselves have deemed too dangerous for licensed individuals to possess - most of which are, in reality, unregistered and thus entirely untraceable by the government. And to help familiarize themselves with this problem, they've most recently sought the advice of an expert panel that is provided with catered meals during three-day long meetings, access to RCMP Firearms Program resources and staff, guided tours of the Firearms Program's gun vault, all at the taxpayer's expense - but without any accountability as the identity of the experts comprising the panel are kept secret, as are all discussions and deliberations of the panel. Even the identities of government staff who attend panel meetings are redacted from Access to Information records.
Moreover, government requests for proposals to help fulfill the program have gone unanswered, while other associated contracts have been abandoned by successful bidders, resulting in the awarding of sole-source contracts that provide no transparency or accountability. For example, in one such case, an Inquiry of Ministry (Q-1862) filed by Cheryl Gallant in 2023 generated a response from Public Safety citing the awarding of $199,993 for project management services to "Ultimate Management Group." Beyond the screenshot below, no other record of Public Safety's formal response seems to exist on the internet today:
Furthermore, no record of such a company exists on the internet, and the government transparency database listing contracts of over $10,000 returns no results for a company of that name. Public Safety's response to the Inquiry of Ministry has been similarly expunged from the internet, and the Access to Information request we filed seeking "contract information for Ultimate Management Group,' any documents discussing how this sole source vendor was selected, and any specifics of the role" did not provide any information on how Ultimate Management Group was selected, and had any and all references, contact information, or otherwise pertaining to Ultimate Management Group explicitly inappropriately redacted as, partially, "personal information." The only information provided about the company within was a check box that indicated it operates as a Sole Proprietorship, rather than a corporation. Additionally, previous ATIPs indicate that Ultimate Management Group has been contracted by Public Safety in support of the ASFCP as far back as 2021, for sums of $9,000, $14,250, and $16,000, and potentially more.
Adding to the intrigue is that the proposal for the initial contract, valued at $99,157, was produced by Public Safety on Febraury 8, 2021, and was awarded on February 26, 2021 - but within, contained the stipulation that Public Safety "expected that the main project management elements are competed by March 31, 2021," just 33 days after the contract was signed. Then, on June 22, 2022, an amendment to the contract was signed that provided the sole proprietorship with an additional $100,835.55 in funding (bringing the total to the $199,993.05 cited in the response to the initial inquiry), but no documentation nor correspondence contained within the ATIP provides any insight as to why. The only reference to the amendment is an email from an unknown Public Safety staffer saying, "Please find attached an amendment for your review and signature."
A somewhat strange LinkedIn profile can be found for an individual claiming to be a senior partner at the firm, which lists a Hotmail email address, but no response to our missives has been forthcoming over the course of the past months.
Finally, in addition to spending attributed directly to the ASFCP, the innocuous-sounding "Funding to Enhance Canada’s Firearm Control Framework" (FECFCF) horizontal initiative sees Public Safety provide additional funding to the RCMP and Justice Department in the furtherance of three shared goals, or themes. The first two are beyond reproach: To "Strengthen services to support the lawful acquisition, ownership and use of firearms," with the desired outcome being "Canadians and law enforcement benefit from easier access to and improved delivery of firearms regulatory services," and "Combat illegal firearm-related activities," with the stated goal being "Illegal firearm-related activity in Canada is reduced."
But the third is entitled "Enhance firearms policy advice and promote awareness of firearm programs," so "Canadian communities are safe from firearm-related crime," and includes the allocation of $42 million dollars for three things, broadly: Social media campaigns designed to influence Canadians' behaviour in favour of Liberal gun reforms, introduce or amend three gun laws a year, and get the RCMP to support Public Safety's requests for additional buyback funding.
A parliamentary committee note associated with last year's Main Estimates provides some insight into the FECFCF's genesis: "Prior to Budget 2021, funding supported program measures to address gun and gang violence and increase capacity and technology for law enforcement and border control. Budget 2021 allocated $312.0 million over five years, starting in 2021-22, and $41.4 million ongoing, for the Funding to Enhance Canada’s Firearms Control Framework Horizontal Initiative to implement legislation (e.g. the former Bill C-71 and the former Bill C-21) and to fight gun smuggling and trafficking." Its full text also provides some insight into the tangled web of funding that exists for gun confiscation programs and policy/regulatory reforms within Public Safety Canada.
Questions of Credibility
Although questionable contracts and self-perpetuating initiatives form a proverbial drop in a bucket that is otherwise occupied by the hundreds of millions of budgeted taxpayer dollars outlined earlier in this article, it is the combination of excessive spending without any indication of positive outcomes, and obfuscation to the point of evading all accountability that creates serious questions of irresponsibility, if not impropriety, around recent Canadian gun reforms.
Like the long gun registry before it, the Assault-Style Firearms Compensation Program is proving far more complicated than the politicians who envisioned it ever imagined, accounting for the largest increases in new spending at Public Safety, as well as the bulk of the 25.5% increase in staffing at the department from 2022 to 2025. And yet, for all the hundreds of millions of dollars thrown at the spectre of gun crime in Canada, the rate at which it occurs has seen a meteoric rise over the same period of time, with Statistics Canada reporting that the rate of gun crime incidents is 8.5% higher today than when the first ban was enacted, and 29% higher than it was a decade ago.
As a result, entire provinces have created laws to prevent the confiscation from occurring in their jurisdictions. And with nearly $200 million budgeted for the program from 2021 to March of this year, and just 7,299 firearms claimed to be confiscated by the government from licensed businesses, the overall cost per firearm confiscated is currently $24,416.* It is, in short, the definition of regulatory capture run amok, and may represent the single most significant programmatic failure of the Trudeau era - and as a result will remain an ever larger, ever more obvious albatross about the neck of any future government that seeks credibility with regard to responsible spending and pragmatic, rational policy, just as the long gun registry proved to be in its waning days.
If even Justin Trudeau could gaze upon the rampant and useless excess of the long gun registry and opine, as he did in 2012 that, "We have a government, or successive governments, that have managed to polarize the conversations around gun ownership to create games in electoral ways - when you don't have to have a conflict," surely those who have and will come to power after him, and who aspire to better his performance, can do the same.
*: Public Safety Canada provided updated ASFCP, Phase 1 progress figures after publication. Businesses have claimed 12,195 prohibited firearms. This indicates a 135.5% compliance rate, given government estimates of 9,000 prohibited firearms in possession of licensed firearm businesses whose inventory is, and has been for decades, subject to annual inspection and inventory confirmation by firearms officers from the Canadian Firearms Program.
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