Most Canadians want Prime Minister Mark Carney to focus on stopping illegal guns from getting into Canada instead of taking firearms from licenced Canadian gun owners through Ottawa’s so-called gun ban and buyback.

Recent Leger polling shows 55 per cent of Canadians think the best way to reduce gun crime in Canada is to focus on stopping the smuggling of guns into Canada from the United States.

Only 26 per cent think banning the sale and ownership of various models of guns along with a government seizure and compensation program would be the best way to reduce crime in Canada.

Canadians have the facts on their side: Ottawa’s gun ban and compensation program has failed to make Canadians safer for the last five years.

The feds originally announced the scheme in 2020 and banned about 1,500 different makes and models of firearms. After multiple expansions of the ban list, it now includes more than 2,000 different types of firearms plus hundreds of different parts and accessories.

Since then, violent gun crime in Canada has increased.

That’s because licenced gun owners, who follow the law to buy and use their guns, aren’t the ones committing these violent crimes.

In fact, about half of all homicides using firearms were related to organized crime or street gangs, according to Statistics Canada.

Those stats echo what the police and academics have been saying about the effectiveness of gun ban and compensation schemes for licenced firearms owners.

“There is no evidence that gun bans are effective in reducing this violence, particularly when 85 per cent of guns seized by our members can be traced back to the United States,” said the Toronto Police Association.

“Buyback programs are largely ineffective at reducing gun violence, in large part because the people who participate in such programs are not likely to use those guns to commit violence,” said Jooyoung Lee, a University of Toronto professor who studies gun violence in Canada.

Federal politicians are finally starting to figure out that the real problem is illegal guns crossing the border.

During the election debate, both major party leaders highlighted the problem of illegal guns coming across the southern border.

Carney said, “We have a problem with guns coming over our border.”

Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre said, “We will secure our border to keep illegal guns out.”

In the government’s most recent throne speech, there was no mention of the gun ban and compensation program, instead King Charles III announced that the Canadian government will “stem the tide of illegal guns and drugs across the border.”

Wasting more taxpayers’ dollars to compensate firearms owners for their property hinders the ability for police forces to deal with the illegal gun problem.

This was highlighted by the National Police Federation, the union that represents the RCMP. In a report, the union said that the gun ban and compensation program, “diverts extremely important personnel, resources, and funding away from addressing the more immediate and growing threat of criminal use of illegal firearms.”

Taxpayers need a full commitment to end the gun ban before any more money is wasted on it.

Government documents show that the total gun ban and compensation program could cost about $2 billion. Other estimates show that the cost could balloon to more than $6 billion. That’s too much money to waste on a program that isn’t going to make Canadians safer.

The police, academics and Canadians know the real danger is gun smuggling, not firearms owned by licenced Canadian gun owners. Despite this, Carney promised during the election to “reinvigorate the implementation” of the gun ban and compensation scheme.

Carney needs to stop wasting money on the gun ban and focus on the real problem of illegal guns crossing the border.