Postal workers side with gun lobby in rejecting Liberal scheme to mail firearms in 'buyback' program

Alex Dhaliwal
  |   May 28, 2024

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's gun grab scheme remains alive and well as the Liberals tabled new regulations before Parliament last week.

The federal government is recommending businesses in possession of “prohibited” firearms mail them to disposal facilities through a professional courier.

“Once the program launches, these measures will provide businesses with additional options to participate in the program and dispose of the affected assault-style firearms and devices they hold in their inventory,” reads a statement from Public Safety Minister Dominic LeBlanc.

The controversial legislation, Bill C-21, An Act to make certain consequential amendments, received royal assent on December 15, 2023.

Phase one of the buyback scheme will focus on retailers, with the Canadian Sporting Arms and Ammunition Association learning how best to confiscate “assault rifles.”

However, Minister LeBlanc earlier deferred the confiscation program from October 30, 2023, to October 30, 2025.

According to The Gun Blog, the Trudeau Liberals have yet to make the regulations publicly accessible online. 

The Department of Public Safety, which will oversee the program, declined Thursday to provide a copy of the regulations.

“The Liberals had made it a crime for anyone to ship so-called ‘prohibited’ rifles and shotguns through the national postal service, deeming it a dangerous risk to safety… until now,” reported the firearms publication.

The newest Liberal regulations come less than a month after Canada Post refused to adopt the program.

The public courier expressed concern with employees being exposed to the theft of firearms and angry confrontations when gun owners who do not comply with federal legislation.

An earlier media statement from the Canadian Union of Postal Workers conveyed “our members’ health and safety must be a priority.”

“The government is crazy if it thinks we can do this safely,” said one employee, who notes his post office, situated in a small municipality, has “zero” security measures.

“It would pose very significant risks because they [small town installations] don't have security,” Dr. Teri Bryant, Alberta’s Chief Firearms Officer, told Rebel News.

The gun lobby condemned last week’s announcement as “naive at best,” urging industry actors to defy federal legislation.

“This is a voluntary surrender of business inventories,” claimed the National Firearms Association.

“We’re wondering if gun shops can now take their unsold AR-15 and Ruger Mini-14 rifles to the Canada Post outlet at the back of their local Shoppers Drug Mart or PharmaSave to mail in their unwanted gear,” said the Gun Blog.

The next phase of the ‘buy-back’ program would target individual gun owners. Details on the compensation models remain in progress.

“On a day-to-day basis, Canada Post does handle firearms,” said Dr. Bryant, “but they're mixed in with a large number of other kinds of parcels.”

Should Bill C-21 come to fruition, “there would suddenly be a large volume of them [firearms] in some form of container that was obvious by its markings or shape… and where they were headed,” she adds.

Dr. Bryant says there’s “no clear target” for organized crime. However, it would still expose “quite a lot of public safety risks,” she told Rebel.

Should Canada Post maintain their refusal, Ottawa may consider employing local law enforcement and private security firms to confiscate firearms at currently unknown “drop-off points,” reported CBC News.

However, several provinces have urged Ottawa to “halt plans to use scarce RCMP and municipal police resources” to confiscate firearms.

Premier Danielle Smith told Rebel her government would not comply with the program in any event. “I wish them continued success at being able to achieve zero compliance,” she said.

The Trudeau Liberals announced a ban on the use, sale and import of more than 1,500 makes and models of “assault-style weapons” following the Nova Scotia mass shooting which left 22 people dead.

The federal government announced Bill C-21 in February 2021, which imposed a national freeze on the sale, purchase or transfer of handguns in Canada.

It failed to ban additional shotgun and rifle models and pulled back the P.E.I. pilot mere days after launching.

Alex Dhaliwal

Calgary Based Journalist

Alex Dhaliwal is a Political Science graduate from the University of Calgary. He has actively written on relevant Canadian issues with several prominent interviews under his belt.

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