Parliamentary Committee Notes: Update on the Firearms Compensation Program

Proposed Response:

Background

In the 2019, 2020, and 2021 Speeches from the Throne and the associated mandate letters to the Minister of Public Safety, Minister of Justice and Attorney General, and the Deputy Prime Minister, the Government committed to a broad gun control agenda that included banning assault-style firearms (ASFs) and establishing a Program to compensate businesses and individual firearms owners for the newly prohibited firearms.

On May 1, 2020, the Government prohibited over 1,500 makes and models of ASFs, their variants, and some upper receivers with an amendment to the Regulations Prescribing Certain Firearms and Other Weapons, Components and Parts of Weapons, Accessories, Cartridge Magazines, Ammunition and Projectiles as Prohibited or Restricted (the Regulations) by an Order in Council (May 1, 2020, OIC). Of those, nine principal models of ASFs are prohibited as they have semi-automatic action with sustained rapid-fire capability (i.e., tactical military design with large magazine capacity), are of modern design, and are present in Canada in large volumes. Also included are firearms with a bore diameter of 20 mm or greater (i.e., grenade launcher) or with a muzzle energy of greater than 10,000 joules (e.g., 0.50 caliber BMG sniper rifles). Since May 1, 2020, approximately 400 variants of the nine principal models of ASFs have been determined to be prohibited under the OIC – they were mostly previously non-restricted, and therefore the Royal Canadian Mounted Police’s (RCMP) Canadian Firearms Program (CFP) only became aware of their existence by analysis over time. In total, therefore, the OIC added approximately 2,000 makes and models to the Regulations. Approximately 19,500 rifles and shotguns suitable for hunting remain available.

The prohibition limits access to the most dangerous firearms and removes them from the Canadian market. An Amnesty Order under the Criminal Code came into force at the same time as the amendments to the Regulations and was extended to October 30, 2025, to protect lawful ASF owners and businesses from criminal liability and to allow them time to come into compliance with the law. The amnesty also provides a temporary exception for Indigenous peoples’ exercising their section 35 Constitutional hunting right, as well as those who use firearms for sustenance hunting, which enables them to continue to use their newly prohibited firearms (if previously non-restricted) until a suitable replacement can be found.

The 2021 Speech from the Throne and mandate letter for the Minister of Public Safety reiterated the commitment of the Government to make it mandatory for owners to dispose of their ASFs, including by surrendering them to the Government for the purposes of destruction or having them deactivated at the Government’s expense.

The total number of affected ASFs is estimated to be approximately 150,000. Of these, approximately 110,000 were formerly classified as restricted, and thus the details on their ownership, location, and characteristics are known. The majority of the formerly restricted firearms are located, in descending order, in Ontario (39 per cent), Alberta (21 per cent), and British Columbia (19 per cent). The remaining approximately 40,000 ASFs were previously classified as non-restricted. This is an estimate since non-restricted firearms do not need to be registered and therefore their total volume in Canada is unknown. This estimation is based on open-source records from 2012, which have been increased by 25 per cent to account for observable trends in market growth. Approximately 9,000 ASFs (6 per cent of the total) are owned by businesses, not individuals. Industry estimates are that formerly non-restricted firearms exist in volumes approximately tenfold the Government estimates, and these figures were adopted in a 2021 analysis performed by the Parliamentary Budget Office. The variance is most likely attributable to differences in calculation methodologies employed to estimate the number of formerly non-restricted ASFs (i.e., open source records versus a survey of current and historical import permits issued to industry members).

During the amnesty period including throughout the implementation of the Program, owners may still choose to dispose of their affected ASFs and prohibited devices (i.e., upper receivers of the M16, AR-10, AR-15 and M4 pattern ASFs) in the ways set out in the Order. For example, affected owners can surrender them to police for no compensation, deactivate them at their own expense, export them, or, if a business, return them to the manufacturer. Prohibited ASFs cannot be imported or sold in Canada, and can only be used (i.e., exercise of s.35 Constitution Act, 1982 Indigenous right to hunt), transported or transferred within Canada under certain conditions.

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