While the Liberal government has pushed in place their national gun “buyback” scheme to take legal guns out of the hands of legal law abiding gun owners, not a single gun has been purchased despite spending millions of dollars.
According to the Canadian Taxpayers Federation (CTF), the cost of the gun grab is ballooning out of control while not doing anything to fight gun related crime.
“This is more evidence that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s gun ban and buyback is going to be another taxpayer boondoggle,” said CTF Federal Director Franco Terrazzano.
“The feds are spending millions of dollars before reimbursing a single gun owner, so it’s a good bet that this bill will keep ballooning.”
The federal government is hemorrhaging millions of taxpayer money, $3.7 million has been spent on opening a department to handle the operations. Canadian Taxpayers Federation (CTF) says a statement given to them by the government outline $2.1 million was paid out in salaries to 10 officials at the Firearms Buyback Secretariat and another $1.6 million spent to secure office space.
CTF, says the Secretariat refused to give a detailed breakdown the firearms buyback program.
While the the Liberal government claimed the program would cost taxpayers $200 million, the Parliamentary Budget Officer estimates the price tag is closer to $756 million which does not include administrative or bureaucratic staffing costs.
“Trudeau needs to cut his losses and put an end to this ineffective and expensive policy,” explained Terrazzano.
“The people protecting us say the gun ban and buyback won’t make Canadians safer, and taxpayers don’t need another government program that wastes our money.”
The widely unpopular gun “buyback” program has been criticized by multiple provinces creating tension between the federal and provincial levels of government. Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba have told the federal government they will not be participating in confiscating legal firearms from law-abiding gun owners that have been thoroughly vetted by the RCMP.
Alberta released an announcement challenging Trudeau’s firearm confiscation program and Alberta RCMP officers will not be doing the federal governments bidding and will focus on real violent crimes and the guns used in them.
“As intervenors, we would be able to offer the Court arguments based on the specific challenges that the federal legislation has created for Alberta’s law abiding firearms community and advanced legal arguments that the federal government has overreached with its plan to ban 1500 models of firearms,” said Alberta Justice Minister Tyler Shandro.
