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Canada extends ban on firearms to include 300 more weapons
Those currently possessing them have until Oct 30, 2025, to comply with the buyback program.
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File Photo / Pexels
Thirty-five years after a gunman killed 14 women and injured 13 others at the Ecole Polytechnic de Montreal massacre in Montreal, the Government of Canada as a part of its continuing program of banning firearms has added 324 additional makes of weapons to the prohibited list.
With this announcement on Friday, the eve of the 35th anniversary of the massacre, the number of firearms banned in Canada has risen to 1,824.
Public Safety Minister Dominic LeBlanc said that the banned firearms and weapons were made for battlefields and not for hunting. The latest weapons put on the banned firearms list were identified and finalized following consultations with various experts, including those from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.
LeBlanc said that “these firearms can no longer be legally used, sold, or imported in Canada and can only be transferred or transported under extremely limited circumstances”.
There has been growing criticism of the Liberal government over the alarming increase in gun violence. The recent policy of the Liberal Government of buying back firearms reportedly failed to yield any positive results. The Opposition Conservative Party has been sparing no occasion to blast the Liberal Government for the rising incidence of crime, including gun violence, in the country.
The order banning additional weapons becomes effective immediately. Those currently possessing them have until Oct. 30, 2025, to comply with the buyback program.
In February 2021, the federal government through Bill C-21 announced a slew of gun-control measures. The new legislation sought to ban “assault-style” firearms, defined as guns that are semi-automatic with center-fire ammunition and designed to hold a magazine of six or more cartridges.
The government had sought to use a definition that would have added more guns to the banned list but abandoned the plan in early 2023 after backlash from opposition parties and First Nations members concerned that the expanded ban would limit hunting guns.
The legislation, adopted in December 2023, also imposed a national freeze on the sale, purchase, or transfer of handguns in Canada.
The government maintains that it has been working with provinces, territories, and law enforcement on the buyback program. Ottawa is also working to identify whether some of the banned guns can be donated to Ukraine to aid in their war against Russia, LeBlanc said.
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