The Canadian government in 2020 followed New Zealand’s lead and launched a program to force gun owners to surrender their military-style firearms. But while New Zealand acted quickly in 2019, the Canadian government is still struggling to implement its own plan.
Then-Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern’s government announced the firearms buyback program shortly after a white supremacist killed 51 people at two Christchurch mosques in March 2019.
By the end of the year, New Zealand had collected 56,000 semi-automatic rifles under national police supervision.
New Zealand acted quickly, setting up mobile units where gun owners can trade in their firearms for a refund, or get compensation at 43 participating gun dealers.
New Zealand Police Superintendent Richard Wilson said a key to the program’s success was trying to build trust with gun owners.
“It was paramount for New Zealand to have buy-in from the firearms community. Without that it could be very difficult,” he told Radio-Canada.
“We worked really hard to work with them from the beginning.”
Meanwhile in Canada, the firearms industry and individual gun owners are vehemently opposed to the plan, announced by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in 2020.
Bad Relationships with Gun Owners
Canada’s firearms industry has called the operation a “confiscation” or “gun grab,” and many gun owners say they hope Pierre Poirievre’s Conservative government will form the next government and halt the program.
“If it goes ahead, it will be a miserable failure,” said Tony Bernardo of the Canadian Shooting Sports Federation. “The Liberals have shown over the last four years that they have no ability to get this done.”
Wes Winkel, president of the Canadian Sporting Arms and Ammunition Association (CSAAA), said the level of trust between gun owners and the federal government “can’t get any lower.”
In Canada, firearms retailers, unlike in New Zealand, have not shown any interest in helping the government retrieve firearms from private owners.
In fact, the federal government has yet to explain how it plans to take back the weapons it banned in 2020.
Until recently, Ottawa had hoped that Canada Post would be a key partner in the project, but the crown corporation balked earlier this year, telling the government that it couldn’t risk the safety of its staff and facilities by collecting guns.
The federal government now hopes to work with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) and police forces in Ontario and Quebec to implement the project.
From the start, New Zealand’s gun buyback program has moved much faster than Ottawa’s efforts, with Wilson calling the Christchurch shooting a “huge catalyst event” for the program.
“This case has had a profound impact on the whole New Zealand community but also on our political and policy system. It has had a profound impact on all levels of the community,” he said.
He added that it’s important to “strike while the iron is hot.”
In Canada, calls to ban military-style weapons began almost 35 years ago, in the aftermath of the Polytechnic University shooting on December 6, 1989.
After 25-year-old Marc Lépine used a semi-automatic rifle to kill 14 women at a school, a petition signed by more than 500,000 people was presented to the House of Representatives calling for a ban on military-type firearms, except for soldiers and police officers.
The Canadian government launched the buyback program in 2020, shortly after the Portapique, Nova Scotia, mass shooting that left 22 people dead.
The government began banning 1,500 types of firearms that year and promised to buy them back, but four years later, the buyback program has yet to begin.
New Zealand completed its buyback program in less than a year.
Natalie Provost, a survivor of the Polytechnic shooting and spokeswoman for gun control group PolyRemembers, praised New Zealand for its “strong, rigorous and disciplined” approach to its gun buyback program.
“It’s clear that this program was a nuisance. [gun owners]But they quickly ripped the Band-Aid off and that was it,” she said.
“[In Canada]We keep stretching and stretching and stretching, and the more we stretch, the more pain and the more irritation there is.”
Ottawa also has not yet told gun owners how much it will charge them in compensation for surrendered firearms. A price list is not expected to be released until the fall, when the government plans to start buying back banned firearms from companies that have them in stock. A private buyback program isn’t expected to begin until spring 2025.
Superintendent Wilson said New Zealand’s program ensured gun owners were “fairly compensated”.
“So, some people came in very upset, but left very happy with the end result,” he said.
