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HAUBRICH: Still time for Ottawa to scrap gun confiscation program

But the truth is, this program was rigged to fail from the start

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Federal Public Safety Minister Gary Anandasangaree needs to learn the meaning of the sunk-cost fallacy.

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That’s because he needs to finally cut his losses and scrap Ottawa’s gun ban and confiscation scheme.

HAUBRICH: Still time for Ottawa to scrap gun confiscation program Back to video

After wasting millions of taxpayers’ dollars, spending years failing to get the program off the ground and conducting a pilot project that confiscated only 25 firearms, it’s safe to say Ottawa’s gun confiscation is a dumpster that’s on fire and rolling toward a cliff.

And the government is still running into new problems.

After a nationwide declaration period where firearm owners can apply for compensation for their now-banned guns, the total number of declared firearms reached around 67,000.

The government budgeted for 136,000. Other estimates show that the total number of firearms banned by the feds could be more than two million.

Not exactly a feather in the cap for the public safety minister and the federal government.

Program a colossal failure from the start

But the truth is, this program was rigged to fail from the start. That’s because the program’s stated goal, making Canadians safer, can never be accomplished under this program because of the way it was designed.

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That’s because only law-abiding firearm owners can legally participate in this scheme. It will not take a single gun away from criminals because you need to legally own the firearm you turn in to participate.

Even if the government manages to confiscate every gun on its list and somehow avoids further cost overruns, this program would still be a colossal failure.

Even if everything goes smoothly, it will not take a single firearm out of the hands of a criminal in Canada.

That’s why law enforcement experts, Canadians and even the public safety minister want the government to change its focus to on the real problem — criminals and illegal guns being smuggled into Canada from the United States.

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

And dozens of police forces across the country are telling Ottawa that they won’t help them confiscate guns from Canadians. Ontario Association of Chiefs of Police president Mark Campbell said that taking time to confiscate hundreds of guns could bog down detachments. For Campbell, the choice is between a “focus on serious violent crimes and repeat violent offenders as opposed to acting as custodians for a federal gun buyback program.”

Law-abiding owners aren’t the problem

Polling also shows that most Canadians would rather the government focus on ending gun smuggling to reduce crime, not carrying out a government gun confiscation scheme.

The public safety minister also admitted in a leaked audio recording that the law-abiding firearm owners are not the problem.

And all the while, the cost to taxpayers is still likely to be huge. The government has said there is $742 million committed to be spent on this program.

However, history has shown taxpayers that governments aren’t very good at staying on budget, and estimates from experts show that the entire program could cost taxpayers up to $6 billion.

But even one dollar spent on this program is a waste of money because it won’t make Canadians safer.

There’s no shame in admitting you’ve made a mistake and need to go back to the drawing board. Ottawa’s gun ban has been a mistake since it was announced almost six years ago and Ottawa needs to finally realize it and scrap this program before wasting more time and taxpayer money.

Gage Haubrich is the Prairie director of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation 

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