The Canadian Taxpayers Federation is calling on the federal government to scrap its gun confiscation program after announcing the national rollout of the gun confiscation scheme.

“The failed Cape Breton pilot project should have proven to Ottawa it’s time scrap this program,” said Gage Haubrich, CTF Prairie Director. “Ottawa needs to listen to the law enforcement experts who are calling for support to stop illegal guns rather than confiscating guns from licensed gun owners.”

The federal government announced it will start the national gun confiscation program with a declaration period starting on Monday.

The government aimed to confiscate 200 firearms during the Cape Breton pilot project. It only collected 25. The federal government agreed to give at least $149,760 to the Cape Breton Regional Municipality to carry out the confiscation.

Polling conducted by Leger shows that 55 per cent of Canadians think that stopping illegal gun smuggling, not a gun confiscation scheme, is the most effective way to reduce gun crime.

Police associations have also 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.”

The government has committed $742 million to carry out its gun ban and confiscation scheme, according to Budget 2025. 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 independent experts put the final price tag at about $6 billion.

The governments of Alberta, Saskatchewan, Ontario, the Yukon and Manitoba have all called for Ottawa to scrap the program or have said they will not be participating in it.

“The government needs to focus on the real problem of criminals and illegal guns not going after licensed firearm owners,” said Haubrich. “The federal government needs scrap this program because every dollar wasted on the confiscation is a dollar that can’t be used to stop the real problem of illegal gun smuggling.”