QUESTION PERIOD — Ministry of Public Safety
Firearms Buyback Program
September 19, 2024
I thought the first Indigenous senator was Senator Gladstone, yes? Okay.
Minister, a recent written response from your department to my colleague Senator Plett shows that the NDP-Liberal government’s Firearms Buyback Program has now cost Canadians at least $67 million without a single firearm being bought back by your government. In the written response, Public Safety Canada said that as of June 19, it had spent $56.1 million on this program. As well, the RCMP said that it had spent just over $11 million. This is an incredible amount of money to spend on a program that doesn’t yet exist and which ultimately targets licensed, trained, law-abiding gun owners, not criminals.
Minister, will you scrap this program?
No, Your Honour. No, absolutely not. In fact, we are going to launch the program. We are going to start with Phase 1 in the coming weeks, which will buy back from gun stores and gun dealers well over 10,000 guns that are now illegal and in their inventory. The government will compensate these businesses and proceed to dispose of these assault-style firearms.
It won’t surprise you that I don’t share your view that we are targeting law-abiding gun owners. I understand you repeat the partisan talking points from your leader’s office. That’s not the case. You know very well that’s not the case, senator, and I hear those same phrases in the other place, but I’m happy to provide the same answers that we give in the other place. Canadians support these measures. We’re proud of the program that we’re going to launch. It was a commitment we made to Canadians in an election, and we’ve done a lot of good work to make this ready. I look forward to launching the details of the buyback program in the coming weeks.
There are concerns among law-abiding gun owners, so this is an important issue. The response from your department shows that external consultants received almost $11.5 million of the $67 million that has been spent. Minister, would you table in this chamber information related to contracts provided to consultants under this program, and, for each contract, could you provide the name of the vendor, the value of the contract, the start and end dates and a summary of the work provided?
When I announce the beginning of the buyback program, we will offer considerable details about how the program will operate and the amount of money that will be provided in terms of compensation.
This program does not, in any way, target sportspersons or Indigenous persons who hunt for sustenance or who practise a sport. This is designed to remove military-style weapons from the streets. It was a campaign commitment that we made. We recognize that taxpayers’ money needs to be spent judiciously, and that’s exactly what we’re going to do.
