Ottawa, Canada bans hundreds more types of firearms, looks to send prohibited guns to Ukraine

Public Safety Minister Dominic LeBlanc announced the Liberals were adding 324 more 'unique makes and models' of 'assault-style'firearms to its list of banned weapons

Published Dec 05, 2024 • Last updated 48 minutes ago

OTTAWA — The federal government is adding hundreds more types of firearms to its list of banned guns and looking to send some of them to Ukraine.
On Thursday, Public Safety Minister Dominic LeBlanc announced the Liberals were adding 324 more “unique makes and models” of what he called “assault-style” firearms to its list of banned guns, taking effect immediately.
All current and future variants of these guns would be prohibited. The total number of affected firearms sits around 14,500, according to Public Safety Canada.
The announcement comes on the eve of the 35th anniversary of the École Polytechnique shooting in Montreal on Dec. 6, 1989, where a gunman targeting women killed 14 and injured 10 others.
Honouring those killed in mass shootings means taking action on gun control, LeBlanc said.
In May 2020, the Liberal government announced it was banning some 1,500 types of firearms, promising to compensate gun owners and businesses through a still not-yet-functional forced-buyback program. The Parliamentary Budget Officer has estimated the program could cost upwards of $750 million, depending on its design.
An amnesty order protecting from prosecution gun owners and businesses with prohibited inventory they acquired lawfully, including the 324 models added Thursday, is currently in place until October 2025, several days after the next federal election is scheduled to take place.
LeBlanc said on Thursday that the pilot phase of the forced-buyback program targeting distributors and retailers is underway, with four businesses currently participating. It would be open for all businesses “in the coming days,” he said.
He also said that the guns taken from retailers could be shipped to Ukraine, which is fighting a war against Russia’s 2022 invasion.
“As part of that process, the Government of Canada has committed to the Ukrainian government to identify whether some of these guns could be donated to support the fight for democracy in Ukraine,” LeBlanc said.
Defence Minister Bill Blair said the Liberals asked the Ukrainians in October if their troops could use some of the guns Canada has banned .