Adrian Wyld The Canadian Press Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino announced Wednesday morning that Ottawa will buy back some 11,000 firearms currently in store inventories across the country.
Ottawa is launching the first phase of the “assault weapons” buyback program it banned in 2020. It will buy back some 11,000 firearms currently in store inventory across the country.
The Minister of Public Security, Marco Mendicino, made the announcement Wednesday morning in Ottawa.
The redemption of weapons that are the property of citizens will be done in a 2nd stage, he said .
He promises a fair price for the weapons, but did not say whether they will be bought back at the price at which the stores got them.
He also did not quantify the cost of this massive buyout, but assures that the necessary money was set aside in the last federal budget.
These weapons, like the AR-15 model, are intended for battlefields, he repeated during the announcement. They were designed to kill as many people as possible as quickly as possible. “They have no place in our communities,” he insisted.
To carry out this stage of the buyback program, the government entered into an agreement with the Association of Canadian Sporting Arms and Ammunition Industry (CSAAA), “which will represent the interests of companies participating in the Firearms Buyback Program”. It was the CSAAA that identified the approximately 11,000 weapons, parts and components of weapons that are targeted by this stage of the program.
Recall that on May 1, 2020, the Government of Canada banned approximately 1500 makes and models of assault type firearms and added some 500 more since.
