David Hicks has been trying to get rid of his father’s rifle — but hasn’t had much luck telling the federal government that.
“It’s very frustrating,” said the Ottawa man. “If they’re going to do it, they need to do it properly.”
Executor of his father’s estate, Hicks has been trying to declare the semi-automatic firearm he inherited with the Liberal government’s banned gun compensation program. He wants to be in compliance with the law — and get some money for his widowed mother.
OTTAWA — The federal government says more than 67,000 guns have been registered to be turned in for compensation under its program for banned weapons.
Public Safety Canada announced the figure on Wednesday, one day after the compensation window, which opened in mid-January, closed for owners of the more than 2,500 makes and models of firearms the federal Liberals have prohibited since 2020.
CALGARY — Tuesday marked the final day for Canadian gun owners to declare their prohibited firearms and receive compensation as part of the Liberal government’s gun grab program, and some gun owners are backtracking on their declaration.
(Incognito)
I’ve been looking at historic massacres for a little while now, and there’s always been one that looms slightly larger in my mind than most others. All but one, really. The one I’m talking about is called the Camilla Massacre.
You’ve probably never heard of it, and that’s fine. It’s local history to me, something that happened just a handful of miles down the road from where I sit as I type this, in a town I’ve been to countless times, both before I learned of this horrific event and afterward.
Ed Landy has been shooting so long he can remember riding the school bus with a shotgun so he could hunt ducks after the final bell.
“My teacher would just tell me to keep it in a locker during school hours,” Mr. Landy recalls of his ninth-grade hobby in rural Manitoba. “And then he’d wish me luck at the end of the day.”
Now aged 75, Mr. Landy remains an avid firearms enthusiast, even as the federal government has limited their use and availability in the wake of several mass shootings over the past four decades.
He comin to your town!
The debate over self-defence law in Canada has been thrust back into the spotlight following an incident in Vaughn, Ontario. York Regional Police have decided not to charge a homeowner who shot and wounded one of three armed and masked suspects who had allegedly forced their way into the man’s home. Ontario Premier Doug Ford even weighed in on the case, offering “congratulations” to the homeowner and adding that, “I’m glad you shot the guy.”
CALGARY — Public Safety Canada announced on Thursday that more than 47,000 prohibited firearms have been declared across Canada after two months of the federal government’s gun grab program for individuals — a number critics say represents a minuscule fraction of affected firearms.
The Supreme Court of Canada has agreed to hear a challenge against the Liberal government’s ban on around 2,500 types of what it calls “assault-style” firearms.
On March 19, the top court granted leave to hear an appeal challenging the federal ban on firearms that Ottawa classifies as suitable only for military use, rather than for hunting or sport shooting.
Ontario Premier Doug Ford said a homeowner in Vaughan should have shot the men who invaded his home a few more times. Ford was reacting to the latest home invasion story in the GTA during a news conference on Wednesday morning.
In Alberta, firearms were never just policy. They were tools. On farms, ranches, and in rural communities, they were part of daily life: pest control, livestock protection, and hunting for food. That agrarian foundation shaped a culture of responsibility and familiarity. In much of eastern, urban Canada, firearms are viewed through a different lens — crime prevention, public safety risk, metropolitan policing. That cultural divide sits beneath today’s conflict.
The federal Liberals’ gun buyback scheme just keeps getting more and more expensive and more and more useless by the week.
Late last year, the feds conducted a trial run of their confiscation program, more than five years after they first announced it. For six weeks on Cape Breton, regional police accepted banned guns that were being turned in by their owners in return for compensation.
“Red flag” orders were billed as a faster, simpler way to keep Canadian communities safe by temporarily removing legal firearms from the hands of those who might do themselves — or others — harm. They were part of a suite of gun control measures introduced in the wake of 2020’s Portapique, N.S., mass shooting, the deadliest in the country’s history.
But more than two years after the orders finally became federal law, it’s unclear if they are working as designed — because no one appears to be keeping track of when, where or how often they are being implemented.
Six years ago, an Order-in-Council (OIC) banned more than 2,500 models of what Ottawa calls “assault-style” firearms. That OIC included common hunting and sporting rifles that were owned, stored, and used legally.
In January 2026, Mark Carney’s Liberal government finally launched its long-promised “Assault-Style Firearms Compensation Program.”
Quebec Public Safety Minister Ian Lafrenière says the province’s firearms registry cannot be used by Ottawa to identify gun owners who are affected by the federal gun ban, nor will firearms be confiscated from Quebecers.
Lafrenière made the comments in a Feb. 26 social media post, saying he has heard the concerns about the federal gun buyback program from residents of the province.
