06/10/2026
𝐂𝐚𝐫𝐧𝐞𝐲 𝐠𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐧𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐞𝐱𝐭𝐞𝐧𝐝𝐬 𝐚𝐦𝐧𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐲 𝐜𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐛𝐚𝐧𝐧𝐞𝐝 𝐟𝐢𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐦𝐬 𝐮𝐧𝐭𝐢𝐥 𝐚𝐟𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐒𝐮𝐩𝐫𝐞𝐦𝐞 𝐂𝐨𝐮𝐫𝐭 𝐫𝐮𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐠
𝑆𝑡𝑒𝑝ℎ𝑎𝑛𝑖𝑒 𝑇𝑎𝑦𝑙𝑜𝑟, 𝑁𝑎𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛𝑎𝑙 𝑃𝑜𝑠𝑡
𝗝𝘂𝗻𝗲 𝟵, 𝟮𝟬𝟮𝟲
The federal government is extending the amnesty period shielding fi****ms owners from liability for possessing guns that the Liberals have banned until 90 days after a Supreme Court ruling on the ban, which it expects next year.
The amnesty order, set to expire on Oct. 30, applies to owners of the roughly 2,500 makes and models of fi****ms the Liberals have banned since May 2020.
“When there is a Supreme Court hearing on a matter that is quite relevant to the program, I think it’s incumbent upon lawmakers to ensure that we respect that process,” Public Safety Minister Gary Anandasangaree, told National Post in an interview on Tuesday.
“While you know we would have preferred to have the amnesty in place for October … we have to respect the Supreme Court and their ability as the final arbiter of Canadian law to weigh in, and that’s what we’re doing today.”
The minister says the decision was made in concert with Justice Minister Sean Fraser, who oversees the amnesty period.
The top court’s decision to hear a challenge brought against the Liberals’ initial fi****ms ban back in May 2020 represents the latest hurdle the long-delayed and controversial policy has faced since then prime minister Justin Trudeau first promised it during the 2019 federal election.
The Liberals maintain that the decision to ban upwards of 2,500 makes and models of fi****ms targets guns deemed too dangerous for public use, such as the AR-15. Meanwhile, fi****ms owners and their lobby groups have argued it unfairly targets law-abiding gun owners and captures those that are used for hunting and sports shooting. The Opposition Conservatives have vowed to scrap the policy completely, slamming it as a waste of taxpayer money.
The Canadian Coalition for Firearm Rights, which bills itself as “Canada’s gun lobby,” took the federal government to court after Trudeau’s cabinet enacted its first ban on some 1,500 makes and models of guns in May 2020, just weeks after a gunman killed 22 people in a shooting rampage across rural Nova Scotia.
At that time, an initial amnesty period was expected to end after April 2022. It has been extended several times since as the federal government struggled to get a compensation program for affected fi****ms owners off the ground.
The Canadian Coalition for Firearm Rights, which fiercely opposes the policy, has taken aim in its court challenge at the way the 2020 ban was enacted through an order-in-council by cabinet, rather than through a law passed by Parliament.
The Federal Court in 2023 dismissed its appeal for judicial review. The Federal Court of Appeal also dismissed its appeal last year.
Back in March, however, the Supreme Court decided to hear the appeal, with the provincial governments of Alberta, Saskatchewan and Ontario, all of which reject the federal policy, slated to participate as interveners.
As is the case with other appeals, the Supreme Court did not release its reasons for accepting the case.
Anandasangaree back in February blamed dwindling support for the initiative among municipal police services and premiers on the fact that it took the Liberals too long to launch its compensation program. He also previously said the federal government was not open to extending the amnesty order beyond October 2026.
The minister said on Tuesday that he still agrees with those comments.
“The one matter that we didn’t anticipate at that time was the Supreme Court challenge,” he said.
“In both the Federal Court and the Federal Court of Appeal we were quite successful in defending our position,” Anandasangaree added, saying “we still are very confident of the position that we’ve taken.”
He said the decision to extend the amnesty period was being done out of “respect” for the judicial process and out of “the abundance of caution.”
Prominent gun control advocacy group PolySeSouvient, formed by victims of the 1989 Ecole Polytechnique shooting, criticized the decision as risking public safety.
“With this decision, the government is protecting gun owners unwilling to surrender their prohibited weapons against criminal charges — at the expense of potential future victims of mass shootings in Canada,” it said in a statement.
“Continuing to allow access to these weapons increases the risk of this type of extreme violence.”
Tracey Wilson, vice-president of public relations with the Canadian Coalition for Firearm Rights, welcomed Tuesday’s decision, saying it looks forward to presenting its case.
“We suspect that the government realized that a defeat at the Supreme Court of Canada after collecting guns and or prosecuting those in non-compliance would be an untenable position for the Mark Carney’s Liberals,” she said in a statement.
Public Safety Canada, the department overseeing the rollout of the program, expects the Supreme Court to rule next year.
Anandasangaree said collection efforts for the guns declared under the federal compensation program will continue until its scheduled end date of this fall.
“Look, the Supreme Court is not opining on the validity of the compensation program,” he said. “They’re two separate things.”
As of Tuesday, the Public Safety department said more 142,000 of what it calls “assault-style fi****ms” have been declared by individuals and businesses under the federal compensation program.
It said more than 68,000 fi****ms were declared under the individual side of the program, which launched this year
Anandasangaree said the rollout of the program has so far been “on time” and “on budget,” adding that a “very significant amount of resources” had been put into the collection phase of the program.
“This is both the respectful thing to do to those who have already enrolled, and I believe that if individuals do want to buy something else, they’re able to do so, but with the caveat that the Supreme Court will decide on the overall fi****ms and the our ability to prohibit them using our laws.”
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𝘿𝙪𝙚 𝙩𝙤 𝙇𝙞𝙗𝙚𝙧𝙖𝙡/𝙉𝘿𝙋 𝙇𝙚𝙜𝙞𝙨𝙡𝙖𝙩𝙞𝙤𝙣, 𝘾-𝟏𝟖 𝙞𝙣 𝙥𝙖𝙧𝙩𝙞𝙘𝙪𝙡𝙖𝙧, 𝙬𝙚 𝙖𝙧𝙚 𝙪𝙣𝙖𝙗𝙡𝙚 𝙩𝙤 𝙥𝙤𝙨𝙩 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙚𝙣𝙩𝙞𝙧𝙚 𝙖𝙧𝙩𝙞𝙘𝙡𝙚, 𝙨𝙤 𝙬𝙚 𝙧𝙚𝙘𝙤𝙢𝙢𝙚𝙣𝙙 𝙢𝙚𝙢𝙗𝙚𝙧𝙨 𝙨𝙚𝙚𝙠 𝙤𝙪𝙩 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙖𝙧𝙩𝙞𝙘𝙡𝙚 𝒊𝒏 𝒊𝒕𝒔 𝒆𝒏𝒕𝒊𝒓𝒆𝒕𝒚 𝙤𝙣 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝒂𝒇𝒐𝒓𝒆𝒎𝒆𝒏𝒕𝒊𝒐𝒏𝒆𝒅 𝒘𝒆𝒃𝒔𝒊𝒕𝒆, 𝙤𝙧 𝙛𝙞𝙣𝙙 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙡𝙞𝙣𝙠 𝙤𝙣 𝙤𝙪𝙧 𝑿 𝙤𝙧 𝙇𝙞𝙣𝙠𝙚𝙙𝙞𝙣 𝒔𝒐𝒄𝒊𝒂𝒍 𝒎𝒆𝒅𝒊𝒂 𝒂𝒄𝒄𝒐𝒖𝒏𝒕𝒔.
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X.com/CanadasNFA
Linkedin.com/company/national-fi****ms-association
