The Gun Buyback Has Failed by Every Measure. The Minister Admitted It on Tape. The Government Did It Anyway.

The numbers are in. The Liberal government set aside $248.6 million to compensate owners of approximately 136,000 banned firearms. By the March 31 deadline, 67,000 firearms had been declared by roughly 37,900 gun owners — about half the target. The total cost of the program to date, including the bureaucracy built to administer it, has reached approximately $780 million. That works out to roughly $25,000 per firearm in administrative overhead. Not one of those guns has made Canada safer. Not one was used in a crime.¹

This is not a policy that fell slightly short. This is a program that has failed by every measure its architects set — and the evidence that it would fail was available at every stage, from the pilot to the leaked audio to the provincial refusals. The government proceeded anyway.

Start with the pilot. In the fall of 2025, the government ran a six-week test in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia — chosen specifically because officials believed it would produce good results. The target was 200 firearms. The result: 25 guns from 16 people. The government paid $26,535 in compensation. The per-gun administrative cost was approximately $6,000. Public Safety Minister Gary Anandasangaree called it “successful.” Globe and Mail columnist Robyn Urback compared that assessment to “watching your car drag its muffler across the asphalt and saying it just needs a spot of paint.”²

The national rollout has been four times more expensive per unit than the pilot. The RCMP’s administrative costs alone jumped from $10 million in 2023 to nearly $86 million last year. The government committed $12.4 million to Quebec to run the program in that province. None of this is compensation paid to gun owners. It is the cost of running a bureaucracy to collect firearms that are not used in crimes, from people who are not criminals.

Then came the tape. In September 2025, a leaked 20-minute recording captured Anandasangaree speaking candidly with a tenant who is also a gun owner. The conversation, recorded without the minister’s knowledge and distributed by the Canadian Coalition for Firearm Rights, revealed the minister’s private assessment of the program he publicly champions.³

On enforcement: “Let’s be frank about this: I just don’t think municipal police services have the resources to do this.”

On why the government is proceeding: “Quebec is in a different place than other parts of Canada, right? And this is something that’s very much a big, big, big deal for many of the Quebec electorate that voted for us.”

On whether he would do it differently: “If I were to redo this — like from scratch, I would have a very different approach on this.”

On the logic of the program: “Don’t ask me to explain the logic to you on this.”

Small Giant / Unsplash — The OPP, Toronto Police, Ottawa Police, and dozens of other forces have refused to participate. Alberta and Saskatchewan have legislated non-cooperation. The minister was recorded saying: ‘I just don’t think municipal police services have the resources to do this.’

He offered to personally pay the difference between the government’s compensation and what the tenant paid for his firearms. He offered to bail the man out of jail if he was arrested for non-compliance, adding: “It’s not going to go that far.”⁴

Anandasangaree later called his comments “misguided.” He said the bail offer was “in jest.” Carney said he has “confidence in the minister.” Pierre Poilievre called for him to be fired. The Bloc Québécois said the recording confirmed the program was political theatre. The program launched its pilot anyway — the week after the tape.

The provincial refusal is now nearly total. The premiers of Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Newfoundland and Labrador, Prince Edward Island, and Yukon have all rejected the program. Alberta and Saskatchewan have gone furthest — passing legislation that prohibits their police forces from participating and instructing the RCMP that any buyback-related expenses will be deducted from their annual contract fees.⁵

Among municipal forces, the Ontario Provincial Police, Toronto Police, Ottawa Police, Guelph Police, Windsor Police, Brantford Police, Sudbury Police, and Thunder Bay Police have all opted out. Only 2 of 138 municipal police forces have agreed to participate. The National Police Federation — the union representing RCMP officers — condemned the program in 2020, calling it “costly” and saying it “does not address current and emerging themes or urgent threats to public safety” and “diverts extremely important personnel, resources, and funding” from fighting illegal firearms.⁶

Public Safety Canada says it will dispatch “mobile collection units” staffed by the RCMP to regions where local police refuse to participate. The logistics of collecting tens of thousands of firearms across a country where virtually no police force will help remain unexplained.

The legal ground is also shifting beneath the program. The Supreme Court of Canada agreed in March to hear challenges to the firearms ban — including from gun-rights groups arguing the prohibitions are unconstitutional. No hearing date has been set. Advocacy groups have said they will seek an injunction to extend the amnesty period until after the court rules. If the court finds the ban unconstitutional, the entire $780-million program — every dollar spent on bureaucracy, every RCMP mobile unit, every compensation cheque — will have been spent enforcing a law that was illegal from the start.⁷

The foundational question has never been answered: does this program reduce gun crime? The vast majority of firearms used in crimes in Canada are obtained illegally — smuggled across the border or acquired through criminal networks. The buyback targets licensed, law-abiding owners of firearms that were legally purchased and legally used before the 2020 ban. The Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police acknowledged the program could reduce prohibited domestic firearms but warned it “may not align with current policing priorities including the illegal importation, trafficking, smuggling and criminal use of firearms.”⁸

Violent crime severity has risen significantly over the past decade. Gun crime has increased. And the government’s response has been to spend $780 million collecting firearms from the people who are not committing the crimes — while the minister responsible was caught on tape saying police can’t enforce it, the program exists because of Quebec politics, and he would do it differently if he could.

The amnesty expires October 30, 2026. After that date, possession of any of the 2,500 banned firearms becomes a criminal offence. As of now, tens of thousands of gun owners — potentially hundreds of thousands — have not declared their firearms. More than 4,000 Albertans who did declare will receive no compensation because their province refuses to participate. The government has not explained how it will verify that undeclared firearms have been deactivated. It has not explained what happens to owners who cannot access the program because their province has opted out. It has not explained why a program that has cost $780 million and collected declarations for fewer than half the targeted firearms should continue to consume public resources.

The gun buyback was announced in May 2020. Six years later, it has cost $780 million. The pilot collected 25 guns from 16 people. The national program declared 67,000 of the 136,000 targeted. Most police forces in Canada will not participate. Nine provinces and territories have rejected it. The Supreme Court has agreed to hear constitutional challenges. The minister responsible was caught on tape saying police cannot enforce it, the program was done for Quebec votes, he would do it differently if he could, and — when pressed on the logic — told his tenant: “Don’t ask me to explain the logic to you on this.” That is not a policy failure. That is a government spending three-quarters of a billion dollars on a program its own minister does not believe in, that most police forces will not touch, that most provinces have rejected, and that does not target the guns used in crimes. The program is not about public safety. The minister said so himself. It is about politics — Quebec politics specifically — and the unwillingness of a government to admit it was wrong. The sunk cost fallacy is not a policy. But it is the only explanation left.