Public Safety Canada has refused comment over its hiring of forensic auditors to assess risk of its “buyback” scheme. Staff would not speculate on the millions in potential fraud and waste.

“The Department of Public Safety has a requirement to perform a fraud risk assessment of a national compensation program targeting businesses and individuals,” the department wrote in a notice to forensic auditors. 

“Working with a team of dedicated stakeholders, the external firm is expected to undertake a systematic and thorough process to identify, evaluate and help address internal and external fraud vulnerabilities related to the national compensation program,” they said.

“There are security requirements associated with this requirement,” said the notice Fraud Risk Assessment For A National Compensation Program. Auditors would be hired in August with a risk assessment due in eight months, it said.

The federal government has spent $41,094,556 on its 'buyback' scheme without confiscating a single firearm to date. Alberta Premier Danielle Smith told Rebel News, 'I wish them continued success at being able to achieve zero with their program.'https://t.co/5XyIO1vPOq

— Rebel News Canada (@RebelNews_CA) April 2, 2024

Public Safety Canada did not comment on the use of forensic auditors, reported Blacklock’s Reporter. They also did not respond to requests for copies of the bidding documents including statements of work. 

However, the timeline coincides with the promised 2025 launch of the federal “buyback” of prohibited firearms. A current amnesty period expires October 30, 2025 after considerable delays spanning years of missteps.

Cabinet in 2020 enacted Regulations Prescribing Certain Firearms that banned some 1,500 high-powered firearms. But department officials postponed enforcement of the order due to stiff resistance and concerns over costs.

“If we take the estimate for example of 150,000 to 200,000 of these weapons that would be surrendered and for which compensation would be paid on an average price, and we’ve done some calculation on this of approximately $1,300 per firearm, the estimate is somewhere between $300 million and $400 million,” then-Public Safety Minister Bill Blair told reporters in 2020. “But it really depends on knowing exactly how many of these firearms are currently possessed in Canada.”

Following several setbacks, Ottawa resumed its gun 'buyback' scheme in April. However, the federal government may have hit another snag as cost estimates procured by the government and industry vary considerably.

MORE: https://t.co/9T8HKP8fiz pic.twitter.com/uYPKaSle3G

— Rebel News (@RebelNewsOnline) June 13, 2023

The Budget Office in a 2021 report said costs could run as high as $756 million. “There remain too many outstanding questions,” said the report, Cost Estimate Of The Firearm Buyback Program.

Analysts noted a similar 2019 program in New Zealand cost twice its original estimate, a total $155 million to recover 61,322 firearms. The New Zealand experiment failed to determine “how effective the overall program was,” said Cost Estimate.

Minister LeBlanc in testimony last October 23 at the Senate national security committee acknowledged the buyback program was unpopular. 

“Every time governments or Parliament legislate in this area there is a very quick reaction from hunting groups and sports shooters, many of whom are in my constituency in rural New Brunswick,” he said. “People I know go hunting.”