SASKATOON, SK: The Canadian Taxpayers Federation is calling on the federal government to scrap its gun ban and confiscation program after confiscating only 25 firearms during its Cape Breton pilot project.

“Ottawa’s pilot project cost a lot of money, but only picked up a fraction of the guns projected,” said Gage Haubrich, CTF Prairie Director. “Law enforcement experts told the government the gun confiscation won’t work and now the failed pilot project has proven the point.”

The federal government conducted a pilot project to confiscate firearms from licensed gun owners in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, for approximately six weeks starting in September 2025. The federal government agreed to give at least $149,760 to the Cape Breton Regional Municipality to carry out the confiscation.

The government aimed to confiscate 200 firearms during the pilot project. It only collected 25.

The police and other experts have publicly stated this scheme won’t make Canadians safer.

“We know that the gun buyback program is going to have, essentially, zero impact on the crime in Toronto,” said Clayton Campbell, the president of the Toronto Police Association.

The union representing RCMP members says Ottawa’s program “diverts extremely important personnel, resources, and funding away from addressing the more immediate and growing threat of criminal use of illegal firearms.”

Budget 2025 says the government has committed $742 million to carry out its gun ban and confiscation scheme, but the government has not been transparent on these costs to taxpayers.

The Liberal Party initially said the confiscation would cost $200 million in 2019. The Parliamentary Budget Officer said it will cost up to $756 million to compensate owners for their firearms. Other experts put the final price tag at about $6 billion.

The government has a history of ballooning costs for gun-control programs. The government initially promised the long-gun registry would cost taxpayers only $2 million. The final tab was more than $2 billion before it was scrapped.  

“The results of this pilot project show exactly why police officers, academics, licenced gun owners and everyday taxpayers knew that the gun ban was going to be a failure from the start,” Haubrich said. “The federal government needs to own up to its failure, listen to the experts and direct resources to stop illegal gun smuggling instead of confiscating guns from licensed gun owners.”