WASTE: Critics sound alarm over Trudeau Liberals’ $756 MILLION firearms confiscation plan

Conservative MP and Shadow Minister for Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness Shannon Stubbs released a statement on Tuesday criticizing the Parliamentary Budget Officer's report on the $756 million price tag that will come with the controversial firearm confiscation program

The $756 million figure is on the lower end of estimates, with program administration costs still unknown.

Stubbs arraigned the Liberals' plans to "take legal firearms from law-abiding Canadian citizens," calling it "another billion-dollar boondoggle that does nothing to truly address increasing violent crime, gun smuggling, and gang violence."

"The simple fact is that every dollar spent taking a firearm away from a law-abiding firearm owner is a dollar not going to fight the true issue of firearm crime in Canada — illegally smuggled guns," Stubbs continued.

Statistics Canada announced last year that it would begin to collect advanced data on where guns used in crimes come from, as police services across Canada continue to report that the presence of stolen and unlicensed guns has only increased in recent years.

The Toronto Sun's Bryan Passifiume wrote in May of this year that of the 86 seized weapons posted by Toronto police to their Twitter, 63 of them were prohibited firearms—meaning they cannot be purchased, owned, or possessed in Canada. These include UZI carbines, AK-47, and MP5s.

MP Stubbs is not alone in her attack on the Liberals' firearm confiscation program

The Canadian Taxpayer Federation called on the federal government to cancel the program altogether, saying that it "won't make Canadians safer."

“The people on the front lines say they don’t need an ineffective and expensive gun buyback program and taxpayers can’t afford another costly scheme that won’t make our lives better,” said Franco Terrazzano, Federal Director for the CTF. “Prime Minister Justin Trudeau needs to reverse course and scrap the ineffective and expensive gun buyback.”

The report itself admits that "while the Government has prohibited these firearms, the details regarding how the voluntary buyback program will be implemented remain unclear." Given the lack of details regarding how the program will be implemented, the PBO looked at other jurisdictions which implemented a firearms buyback program to understand what key components there are to consider when developing a cost estimate. In particular, the PBO reviewed New Zealand’s firearms program, which was implemented in 2019.

The New Zealand buyback program ran from June 2019 to December 2019 and used a three-tier model, which compensated owners based on the condition of the firearm, depending on the condition of the weapon.

As of February 2020, New Zealand's government estimated that the cost to compensate firearm owners would be approximately $120 million.

In Canada, the firearm confiscation program will be virtually mandatory, with little wiggle room. Guns deemed illegal for the public will not be grandfathered in, and those who wish to maintain their weapons will be required to obtain a license to possess them, and register all prohibited weapons.