The Canadian Taxpayers Federation is launching a legal fight after the federal government refused to disclose the details of the guns confiscated during the failed Cape Breton pilot project.

“The government is spending hundreds of millions of dollars of taxpayers’ money on this program and they deserve to know exactly what’s happening with the money,” said Gage Haubrich, CTF Prairie Director. “The government should not be pushing forward with its gun confiscation nationally while leaving taxpayers in the dark on these important details.”

The CTF filed an access-to-information request with Public Safety Canada asking for the make, model and amount of compensation paid for each of the guns confiscated during the Cape Breton pilot project. The government released almost entirely redacted records at the end of January 2026.

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

The federal government has now announced the rollout of its national gun confiscation program with a declaration period that started on Jan. 19.

Every firearm model banned by Ottawa was previously legally owned by licensed Canadians for sports shooting or hunting.

The government has committed more than $742 million to carry out the gun ban and confiscation scheme.

Meanwhile, law enforcement experts say that the program will not make Canadians safer.

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.” 

“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.

Dozens of local police forces are also refusing to participate in the program.

“Withholding basic information about what was seized undermines accountability and frustrates the very purpose of access-to-information law,” said Devin Drover, CTF General Counsel. “If Ottawa is going to spend hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars, it must be prepared to justify that decision in the sunlight rather than behind blanket redactions.”

The CTF is initiating the legal fight for these documents with a complaint to the Office of the Information Commissioner. If the documents are not quickly released, the CTF will aggressively consider taking the issue to court.

The premiers of Alberta, Saskatchewan, the Yukon, Manitoba, Ontario, the Northwest Territories, Newfoundland and Labrador, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick all say their provinces will not participate in the program because it is unlikely to make Canadians safer.